Sean Parker speaks out on Big Sur wedding controversy

Sean Parker says “exaggerations and mistruths” in press accounts have taken a significant personal toll, leaving a dark stain on his wedding. Beck Diefenbach for The Chronicle (2011)

Earlier this month, it emerged that Internet entrepreneur Sean Parker agreed to pay $2.5 million to settle a series of Coastal Act violations, stemming in part from his elaborate wedding at a campground in Big Sur.

Parker’s event company had constructed rock walls, stairways, a stone bridge and a dance floor, among other structures, on sensitive habitat around the Ventana Campground, without proper permits.

I wrote: “To the outside observer, Parker’s actions look like contempt for the piddling rules that we non-billionaires can’t buy our way around.”

I said less kind things, too. I went too far.

Parker makes a compelling case that much of the press coverage mischaracterized the events and his role in them. In the days since his wedding, the Napster co-founder and early Facebook executive has been, as he put it to me, “focused on correcting the record.”

He said that the “exaggerations and mistruths” in press accounts have taken a significant personal toll, leaving a dark stain on his wedding. Parker said he received death threats and was spit on in public.

The central facts of the early accounts, based on the initial press release and report from the California Coastal Commission, remain true. The construction did occur without proper approvals and there were environmental risks.

But at a minimum, it appears his wedding was not the reckless trampling of a redwood forest that early reports suggested.

Parker took conscious steps to limit any environment damage, starting by consulting with the Save the Redwoods League early in the process, he said. It was that conservation organization that directed him to the Ventana Campground precisely because it was privately owned and partially developed, he said. The organization’s director of science advised the landscape architect on appropriate guidelines for the construction.

“Two people do not go to enormous lengths to get married in a redwood grove only to run roughshod over it,” Parker wrote in an e-mail to me. “They do so out of respect, because they love the redwood forest, feel a connection to the forest, and want to share that with their friends and family.”

Parker and his wife, singer Alexandra Lenas, pictured a few months before the wedding. AP photo

Of potentially greater importance, Parker insists that he explicitly and repeatedly asked whether permits were required for his event and was definitively told no. Ventana Inn and Spa also didn’t disclose any of the relevant land-use restrictions, he said. If that’s all true, it suggests much of the outrage should have been directed toward Ventana.

Even if he had known he needed approvals, “I didn’t have legal standing to get permits, since I wasn’t the landowner nor did I have a lease,” he said in an interview Thursday.

A spokeswoman for the Coastal Commission said they have no way of knowing whether Parker did or didn’t know about the permit requirements and restrictions. Ventana declined to comment.

It certainly is clear that Ventana wasn’t above violating the Coastal Act on its own. It did so years before it had any interactions with Parker.

After the Coastal Commission discovered the wedding construction, it also became clear that the campground, which was supposed to be open to the public, had in fact been closed since 2007. Parker said other private events, including at least one wedding, have been hosted there in the meantime.

Ventana was required to continue operating the site as an affordable campground, per a decades-old land-use agreement that granted the company the right to expand its luxury hotel on the site.

The question raised by all this is why Parker would pay such a hefty fine if he did nothing wrong? That act looks like an admission of guilt and is likely why the press coverage went the direction it did.

Parker said he had signed agreements indemnifying the hotel against any unexpected costs related to the event, and found himself stuck with the choice of paying for all of the infractions or canceling a wedding that was 20 days away.

“You find yourself in these situations in life where you’re trapped between a rock and a hard place,” he said. “It was pretty clear the hotel was going to shut me down or the Coastal Commission was going to shut me down if I didn’t cover those liabilities.”

But if Ventana misled him and cost him millions of dollars, why not consider legal options?

“As part of this, I made a series of agreements I can’t discuss,” he said. “I’m precluded from pursuing any kind of legal recourse. Nor do I want to. I want this episode to just go away.”

The construction on the site did pose environment risks. The campground is adjacent to Post Creek, a spawning habitat for steelhead trout, a species the federal government lists as threatened.

I asked Sarah Christie, legislative liaison for the Coastal Commission, whether there was any known damage from the construction or event.

“It didn’t kill any redwood trees, it didn’t kill any fish, it’s not damage in that sense,” she said. “But it definitely altered the coastal environment and if left unaddressed it would have certainly had long-term impacts on the forest.”

The other question that many have asked is why the Coastal Commission allowed the wedding to proceed at all? Why not levy a stiff fee and shut it down?

Christie said that by the time they discovered what was underway, nearly all of the construction was complete and the event itself wasn’t going to make matters worse.

“The problem is the dance floor, not the fact that people were dancing on it,” she said.

Christie added that the Coastal Commission doesn’t have the power to levy fines on its own. It can file lawsuits — which are expensive, long and unpredictable — or it can come to an agreement.

“It’s kind of ironic the Coastal Commission has been accused of going soft on Mr. Parker because of his status,” she said. “The reality is, this is how we always deal with people. If we can get someone to settle with the commission and resolve the violation and pay a voluntary settlement, we consider that a win-win. We consider that a victory.”

Or at least it seems they made the best of a bad situation. The Coastal Commission unanimously approved the settlement agreement in mid-July, which essentially included a $1 million fine and a $1.5 million donation. Among other things, the money will enhance public access in Big Sur, create new hiking trails and fund programs for inner city youth to explore the coast.